Are Cats Shameless Junkies?

Cats love catnip. They eat it, roll in it, and clearly get a buzz from it. Most cats also love silver vine, a plant not closely related to catnip. Even big cats – like jaguars and tigers – will enjoy a good chew.

Now researchers in Japan have learned there’s more to this behavior than cats just getting high: chemicals in the plants called iridoids act as a bug repellent. Their study appears in the journal iScience.

The researchers measured iridoid levels in catnip and silver vine leaves, as well as chemicals in the air above the plants, comparing whole and damaged leaves.  They found that leaves chewed by cats released at least 20 times more nepetalactone, a bug repellent, than undamaged leaves did; silver vine leaves released at least eight times the amount of similar iridoids.

The chewing releases the iridoids, and then rolling in the stuff coats a cat in an effective repellent of mosquitoes and flies. “In conclusion,” the scientists write, “feline leaf damage contributes by releasing more mosquito-repellent iridoids. Feline olfactory and behavioral sensitivity is fine-tuned to plant-specific iridoid production for maximizing the mosquito repellency gained.”

So cats aren’t (just) shameless junkies after all. The buzz they get from catnip is merely an added benefit.

Photo credit: Masao Miyazaki